People Share What Modern Home Trends They Find Annoying, And Here Are 40 Of The Worst Ones
If you're decorating a new house and don't know where to start, you might spend hours browsing Pinterest mood boards. Looking for new ideas and trying to figure out your style and what's considered in this year can be exhausting. But remember one thing—home design trends come and go. While some of them turn out quite nice, others might be expensive and inefficient.
Reddit user u/wazzel2u raised this question in r/AskReddit: “What is a terrible trend found in new home design?”, and more than 5K people replied. Whether it's lack of storage space, hollow interior doors or open concept bathrooms, the comment section under their post is full of some of the worst design solutions that you should leave behind.
Bored Panda collected some of the most messed-up decor tendencies shared in this Reddit thread. If you have some insights on the topic, don't be shy and share them below!
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The lack of secret bookshelf doors. I mean, who designs their custom home and does not include a bookshelf secret door? People design houses for a reason, and that reason should be secret doors
According to design guru Nate Berkus, following the trends too closely is actually one of the biggest mistakes homeowners can make. “I think that people are very easily taken with the latest look, the latest feeling,” he said.
The interior designer explained that we get easily tired by these types of trends: "It’s kind of like that black-and-white concrete tile that everybody had. Three, four years ago, it was the thing to use in your powder room floor and on your kitchen backsplash, but do you really want it anymore now that you’ve seen it over and over and over?” he asked. Berkus would rather choose really classic, beautiful materials that stand the test of time.
So instead of copying the latest decor tendencies, Berkus suggests choosing materials that have been around since the 1920s because they are always a safe choice: "Stone or stone-solid surfacing, concrete, stone, or wood floors, classic ceramic tiles, terra-cotta, butcher block—all of that stuff has been around forever, and there’s new innovation within those looks.“
Open concept bathrooms.
I don’t need to see you taking a dump from my bed.
Apartment Therapy says that a good rule of thumb would be to go a little more traditional with major furnishings and to add new trends with textiles and other small items. This way, you can modernize your home without changing the expensive cornerstone pieces and easily swap out the little details in the future.
They advise on a few timeless trends that could save you some money if you're planning to redecorate at some point. One of them would be choosing white subway tiles in the kitchen: "White is always a bright, clean backdrop for styling objects and art against." As people say, white never goes out of style, so it is a safe bet since you don't have to limit yourself when looking for other details.
Removing stair banisters for a crisp look. Like your drunk friend Brooks is going to fall of the side and die one day. There are building codes for reasons
Or a kid running will do w header or you in socks on wooden floors. This is totally a death trap
Live laugh love.
OMG I hate those things that say Live Love Laugh. I hate it more when people tattoo those words on their bodies.
In their opinion, neutral tones are always a better option than going with the color of the year (unless, of course, it's neutral). “Neutral tones are timeless and work in any context,” explains designer Becky Shea. “When you go too bold and loud, in the long term, it’s not sustainable.” The same could be applied to furniture and textiles. Choosing natural materials is stylistically versatile, full of texture and warmth, not to mention that it's sustainable and practical.
Total lack of solar panels/windmills. I think its criminal that new builds don't have any form of energy generator built in.
Agree...I live in the desert and still can't understand why they don't build houses that take the climate into account; 110-115 degrees for most of the summer and 300 sunny days/year and still they build without solar, they install windows that are flush with walls facing the sun without large window overhangs or awnings to keep the summer heat out, better insulation etc. First thing we did when we built our house last year was add solar to everything we could, awnings on the windows, situate the house on the lot to minimize interior sun exposure and install a home battery.
Carpeted bathrooms. I’ve seen way too many of them
Then there are the small details. “Live laugh love“ type of decorations or ordering everything in marble might seem great at the time but after some time it can become tasteless. And what about removing stair banisters? Well, it definitely achieves the minimalistic look that's been trendy for the past few decades but in real life, it's not only useless but also dangerous.
Might be an unpopular opinion but i don't need my home to be smart...I just need things to happen when they are supposed to happen and not completely shut off when some douche thought it was a good idea to play who can touch the powerline
Hollow interior doors that don't keep sound out from within the house and hallways - especially hollow bedroom doors when you're trying to sleep.
The cold and sterile look. White, black (high polish please so you see every single fingerprint)... why?
Amen! Where is the warmth? Every room design looks like an un-lived in furnished apartment for rent. Here's my ideal room for example.... greenwich-...a1fb71.jpg 
Lastly, the most important thing to remember is that you are creating a home for yourself. Your place should reflect you as a person, it does not have to be perfect or insta-worthy. It's all about coziness and familiarity, not aesthetics.
No broom closets. Where the hell do people put their mops and vacuum cleaners? Or do the people who buy those McMansions just not do any of their own cleaning?
I bought a wardrobe for that as in EU is not that common to have broom closets.
I really don’t like the fireplace design where you are intended to put your TV over it. A TV is way too high when over the fireplace.
for a good body posture, a TV screen should always be placed so that is straight in front of your head, not higher not lower.
I don't know if it's new new, but it drives me crazy when people replace cabinetry with open shelves.
Don't people understand dust? Bugs ring a bell? Pet hair? Speaking of pets, how do you keep your cats from messing around with that setup?
I have open shelves and I have cats, who cannot care less of books and DVDs , I dust, no problem.
Open concept everything. There is value in being able to separate some rooms of the house. I very much prefer to have a kitchen that is not completely exposed to the area where I am going to be entertaining company.
That way, I can cook dinner and not worry about having to clean up everything in the kitchen so its spotless because the kitchen is basically in the main living room of the house.
This and also the trend of having big a** f**king windows in the front so everyone in the street can see your whole ground floor. Makes your first floor into a f**king fishbowl that I would never be comfortable in. I like to be able to walk around my house without worrying the people across the street can track my every move.
The grotesque housing developments of the same like 4 models and 3 colors with no trees. Not to mention the houses are built like s**t. The terribly inefficient road layout with a million cul de sacs.
I live in a small town in Australia, and suburbs like this are being built up in the rural areas. I find the new pop up suburbs, where every house looks identical and the blocks stand alone in the middle of cleared wasteland, much creepier than old houses.
Bedrooms that are only juuuuust big enough for a double or queen bed and a nightstand.
Many bedrooms are like this in the UK and have been for decades. As long as you can comfortably walk round three sides of the bed and get a wardrobe and chest of drawers in there that is enough. My master bedroom is just big enough for a king size bed, but the second bedroom is only really big enough for a single, though a double would squeeze in, you wouldn't be able to walk round it. My parent's have odd shaped bedrooms, which are just wide enough to get a bed in, but have a huge amount of space either side of the bed. It is basically a trade off between how big you make the bedrooms versus the size of the other rooms. If you only have a small apartment, you want more living space than you do sleeping space.
I may die on this hill alone, but I HATE open concept kitchens. Not the ones with a nice bar separating the space, not the ones with a window. I'm talking wide open, no barrier to determine where the kitchen ends. It's hideous.
I hate kitchens that aren't separate, my house is open concept and the normal counter clutter make the living space look messy and the cooking smells permeate the room. It's a pain in the ass.
Those dumb fake balconies
I have one of those - looks pointless but means I can open the doors in summer. I have no outdoor space/garden so it’s better than having just windows.
Small laundry rooms, small pantries, no linen closets, but here’s a 20x20 media room to watch TV. My next house will either be laid out by me or made in the 70s/80s when they designed homes to be lived in.
It seems to me that watching TV in a linen closet would be very uncomfortable.
No door between the master bedroom and master bathroom. It’s so annoying.
The last 3 houses I’ve lived in have had this issue. I like to be able to close the door when I take a bath or shower.
I don't like the idea of not having a door because of smelly poops.
Lack of storage space. Just bought a new home and didn’t realize how little space there was. We have one storage closet upstairs. That’s it.
in EU it's really not common to have built-in closets. we simply buy furniture for that.
In some newer neighborhoods, the houses all look the exact same.
I hate the design of homes that have a massive garage in the front; “welcome to my garage, the home is in the back.”
Homes built on the cheap with so many corners cut in their construction that they end up being horrible places to live in, plagued by mold, damp, noise and plumbing issues and more.
Even newly built high rise million dollar apartments in New York aren't immune to this. Enjoy the feeling of swaying in high winds, elevators constantly breaking down and water seeping through the walls from burst pipes.
Tiny back yards and HOAs
HOA's are the worst. If I put out the money for my own house, I don't want to be told what color I can't paint it.
Why is everything so damn bland? Why is white and grey the popular colors? Whatever happened to color? Why can't we have living rooms wallpapered with big bright flowers, long suede couches in deep fuchsia? And, mile-high blue carpets that you sink into when you walk? Whatever happened to walnut paneling and colored subway tile in the bathroom? Whatever happened to delicate stenciled flowers on the inside of the bowl of the bathroom sink?
When did we lose our personalities? I just want a house that looks like a manic-depressive toddler version of myself was set lose in a JoAnn's with a limitless credit card.
There’s a builder in our area who tears down perfectly good, full-of-character pre-WWII homes and then packs in these grotesque Craftsman-style-hulk-mode houses that take up every available square foot of the lot. They look absolutely ridiculous. The proportions are wrong, they blight the neighborhood. Bleh.
That is criminal, IMO. UGH. And against the Craftsman aesthetic to go Hulk-Mode. The originals were about not being mass-produced nightmares!
Floor-to-ceiling, clear glass showers. They look great when they are spotlessly clean, which means it looks terrible most of the time in most homes.
Wasted space. This includes enormous bedrooms with sitting areas, homes with equal number of bed and bathrooms, extravagant foyers that eat half the front of a house, formal living and/dining rooms that never get used. Etc
S**tty bathtubs. I grew up in a 100 year old house. It had a nice bathtub with a sloping back so you could comfortably lounge in the bath. Modern tubs are pretty nearly straight up on the back so there's no comfortable way to soak, smoke a joint, and read a book.
I lived in San Francisco for most of my life, and nearly every apartment I lived in (once I made enough money to not need roommates) had a beautiful old clawfoot tube...it was my personal requirement. I lived in one place in the Tenderloin that had a first-generation set-in tub that was too long for me, but still nice and deep for bathing.
Every inch of acreage is used. Houses are really close together, streets are narrow. It’s crowded
Go to a high end gated community development ($800k - 2M price points in my area) front of the homes is beautiful stone, brick, etc but on the back every house has cheap ugly vinyl siding all the same color as far as the eye can see. I never understood this since you actually spend time in the back yard not the front.
The cookie cutter houses with no personality and no room, where the windows look directly into your neighbor’s bedroom. Ugh!
Little Boxes on the hillside. Little Boxes... Goos song. I first heard it the TV Show Weeds.
No attention to lighting temperature (kelvins) or even worse, mismatched light temperatures.
Most cheap LED bulbs are way too "cold" looking and lack the natural warmth of old incandescent lighting.
Aim for 2700kelvin or lower for that warm cozy atmosphere.
The obsession with space. So many people won't even consider anything under 2,000sqft. People don't even think about what it would cost to heat and cool. They just gotta have a McMansion.
As an electrician; putting 600 potlights in every room of the house. Sure it makes me money but it looks ridiculous having so many lights every 4 feet of every room.
Not as bad as the houses with too few lights altogether. I've been in some where you feel like you need a headlamp to get around!
Kitchens that they cram into a narrow rectangle. A lot of apartments and town houses come with these. They are so narrow that if you open the fridge door, nobody can walk past you.
A kitchen should be open, not walled in all sides and shaped like a narrow rectangle. It drives me crazy when I see these.
Apartments and town houses have, in most cases, a very limited amount of space, and you don't really need a huge kitchen. And there's no rule that says a kitchen should be open, some like it and don't don't. I love the fact that I can just close the door in my kitchen and cook in peace or hide the mess. 🙃
I've seen several homes with appliances integrated into the construction of the kitchen itself. Not just in an alcove but actually built into the wall. Sure, it's convenient that there's a f**king cappuccino machine built into the wall next to the cabinet over the center island countertop. But what happens when (not if, when) it needs maintenance? Do I have to call a goddamn carpenter as well as a cappuccino machine repairman? Do I have to consider if this is a f**king load bearing wall that contains my broken appliance? And something that's just a convenience like that is one thing, but they do it with stuff like fridges too.
Fake shutters. They dont even look like they would cover the windows on most houses and they just look like garbage. If you love shutters so much, install real ones.
Agreeable Grey. Everywhere.
I love Glidden Paint color Crisp Linen White. Not a glaring white, it has a hint of cream.
That bluish-grey wood or faux wood flooring that’s “in” right now. Every house and apartment with those will look dated in 5-10 years
Small kitchens with little to literally no pantry. Some of us still cook!
This kind of depends on the size of the house/apartment, though.
These toilets that don't even come up to my kneecaps with how low they sit.
No trim on doors and windows. The drywall comes up to the door jam and it's squared off. It looks like a Greyhound bus station.
4"x4" tile countertops... So many crevices to scrape and clean.
This. I loved it in the picture. Then after I was done making my tile countertop... I've cursed every day since, for years. *sigh*
Weird fixation perhaps, but I cannot stand kitchen cupboards that don't go all the way up to the ceiling. No cabinet storage + a big gap on top for my husband to pile all kinds of c*ap = no thanks.
I hate this too. I have it in my kitchen and I currently have bedding stored up there coz I have nowhere else to put it.
Disclaimer, I live in a 100 year old house.
However here are the things I can’t stand about all the new builds in my area and that some of my friends have purchased;
In no particular order,
Faux modern farmhouse style everything; seems like every builder watched to much of Joanna Gaines and just wants to use shiplap and slider barn doors everywhere; or just likes yo use the term “modern farmhouse” in their marketing material when there is nothing even remotely farmhouse about your vinyl sided box house on a 1/4 acre lot other than a farmhouse style sink any maybe a bit of shiplap in the kitchen
All houses in a development using the same color of vinyl siding or hardyboard. There are whole new built subdivisions here that literally every house is either dark blue, medium blue, or gray. Boring!
Houses that they only really tried to put brick on one side or windows and then the sides and the back of the house are super ugly and just all vinyl; and that is what your neighbors have to look at from their backyard
Open concept everything
Houses now that due to materials are “air tight” and don’t breathe, and have poor ventilation or air circulation
I could thing of about 3 dozen more if I really wanted to
Garages that fit two medium sized cars with about one inch to spare.
A lot of new box-looking modern builds near me and when it rains the eavestroughs freak out and don't know where to put the water. Overflow from the roof all over the freshly mulched gardens with two flowers and a tuft of giant grass in it.
It's like the builder misunderstood that "rain" is a plural of raindrops and they were only expecting one singular raindrop to descend from the heavens.
Open floor plans where the main floor is just like one big room.
Backyard that is only 12' deep.
Most sinks are absolutely terrible. Looking better is nice, but not at the expense of hitting your hand on the bowl every time you wash your hands.
Giant home, 2 feet of grass around it. There were two homes in my old neighborhood that were actually capable of hitting each others windows. F**king nuts
Terrible refrigerator placement. You can't open the door without slamming them on a wall.
I have not been inside a new home in quite a while, but the exteriors seem to be designed by a committee of people who can't work together. Every possible exterior finish is on there, faux brick/stone, stucco, siding at all angles, board and batten, shingles/shakes, you name it, some part of the house has it, often in disparate colours. It looks very bad.
Microwaves over stoves. That built in ventilator is not a substitute for a proper exhaust. All it does is turbocharge smoke/grease into the cabinets above the microwave. I just want a real vent over a stove so I don’t need to worry about setting a smoke detector off whenever I cook bacon or sear something.
What I would do for a real vent in my stupid open concept hell of a kitchen... 😡😡
Barn doors are so stupid. It’s a heavier, more expensive, harder to open door. And then it still has a public bathroom-style gap that eliminates actual privacy.
I don't like it when they have like ten different rooflines that are only a foot or two deep. Are they hoping it looks like an older house that's had many add-ons done?
Skinny, three-level townhomes that cramp you into a vertical space. They feel so unnatural.
That modern metallic design that's taking over practically every new development. The homes just feel cold
Every new building in my neighborhood is like it. The only big positive is that they all are typically multi-purpose so there's like stores and restaurants at the bottom.
People think designing a home to look all creative and flashy and personalized and expressive is a good idea before selling it, then they find out the person that bought it renovated it to be neutral colors, minimalism, and back to being a blank slate, and act like that wasn’t inevitably going to happen.
People want to buy blank slates, because modifying that blank slate is what makes your home yours.
A gabled ceiling to make your room taller.
Open floor plans that let your neighbor see completely through your house.
An undersized front stoop.
No landscaping or trees in your whole development. Or even worse when they half ass it in front of your 400k new house.
I had sort of a gabled ceiling in my room as a kid/teen and I loved it! I had dozens, maybe even around 100 posters on my walls and the ceiling. It was great! Also, lots of glow in the dark stars, and I was able to install a curtain rod to the ceiling to make a nice little nook for my bed.
Painting over bricks. It's just like how people used to put carpet over nice wood hard floors.
Some brick you have to paint if the surface is damaged as the center is much softer and will crumble. And brick from the 70s and 80s is a god awful harsh red
Rounded corners. Sure. They look cool till you want to paint your kitchen a different color from your living room.
Rushing the building process just to get the house finished as fast as possible. One of my sister's friends moved into a new house a few years ago and her dad found out while decorating that one of the walls of a room was at an 85 degree angle or something like that. Really badly designed house.
re purposing old corporate tower blocks into luxury apartments on major roads, starting at £180,000 in the UK, the all day traffic noise is free.
Having a built in faucet with swing arm over fancy dog bowls. They’re putting single, easy turn handles on them! It’ll take the dogs 2 or 3 days to figure out how to turn ON the water. They’ll never learn to turn it OFF! Lol
They think that transportation crate homes are environmental. Due to factors such as toxic unlivable condition, size after putting in plumbing and electrical, hipsters buy brand new 40ft crates and feel like they did something for the environment.
There's a good video on youtube about the shipping container home and how they're problematic, it explains well how it's not some environmentally friendly and easy tiny home. Belinda Carr is the youtuber whose video I stumbled upon not too long ago.
Why do new modern houses have a butlers pantry? Firstly, who entertains to that scale and secondly they are not a real butlers pantries (that is, a place for minor food prep before dinner is served in the formal dining room that is far away from the kitchen. They have really become the real kitchen that gets used while the big kitchen in the open plan living area is just a show piece.
Gables on symmetrical colonials. All it does is date a house to the 2010s.
Any of these posts complaining about small xyz... well duh, yeah it wpyld be nice to have a big kitchen and a big garden, but land is expensive and most of us aren't rich!
Right? I mean most of us barely can afford buying a house or paying rent. Sorry gor having small houses...
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I hate pure, unpainted concrete surfaces in homes. It's a good design element in industrial environments but not in homes. And it's a nightmare to keep them clean. concrete-6...60522f.jpg 
I love polished concrete! If you live in a hot climate, cool floors like this are wonderful!
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One that annoys me and isn't in the list: putting stove tops or sinks in the middle of the kitchen island. This is not so bad if you have a truly massive one, but if you have a more typical 2m wide island, plunking something that's ~75cm in the middle of it turns what would've been a really useful prep area into two tiny ones that are also difficult to use at all if there is someone using the stove or sink that's right there. I've seen some pretty large kitchens that didn't have a single prep surface bigger than 1m because the designer thinks it looks more balanced that way and isn't thinking at all about the actual work of cooking.
And kids' hands so close to the island stove, when they're sitting on those bar stools.
Load More Replies... Any of these posts complaining about small xyz... well duh, yeah it wpyld be nice to have a big kitchen and a big garden, but land is expensive and most of us aren't rich!
Right? I mean most of us barely can afford buying a house or paying rent. Sorry gor having small houses...
Load More Replies... I hate pure, unpainted concrete surfaces in homes. It's a good design element in industrial environments but not in homes. And it's a nightmare to keep them clean. concrete-6...60522f.jpg
I love polished concrete! If you live in a hot climate, cool floors like this are wonderful!
Load More Replies... One that annoys me and isn't in the list: putting stove tops or sinks in the middle of the kitchen island. This is not so bad if you have a truly massive one, but if you have a more typical 2m wide island, plunking something that's ~75cm in the middle of it turns what would've been a really useful prep area into two tiny ones that are also difficult to use at all if there is someone using the stove or sink that's right there. I've seen some pretty large kitchens that didn't have a single prep surface bigger than 1m because the designer thinks it looks more balanced that way and isn't thinking at all about the actual work of cooking.
And kids' hands so close to the island stove, when they're sitting on those bar stools.
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